


Human After All

by le_fuque



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3, Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, Danse has a man bun, Eventual Smut, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Masturbation, Mental Health Issues, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post-Blind Betrayal, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-end of game, Slow Burn, get to the porn already, some canon divergence, tending to wounds can be sexy sometimes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-05-31 08:29:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6463099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/le_fuque/pseuds/le_fuque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“On your knees, paladin.”</p><p>	He nodded. This was it. Danse dropped to kneel on the concrete floor. He squeezed shut his eyes and thought back on his life, trying to catalog the few memories worth reliving in his final moments: him and Cutler getting drunk on whiskey, jumping naked off the dock near Rivet City on a dare; the first time he ever stepped into his own suit of power armor; the day he was promoted to the rank of “paladin”. He tried to recall the face of the young girl who'd made him a man when they were both still initiates at the Citadel, but for some reason he could only conjure the look on Nora's face and the taste of her mouth when she kissed him in the belly of that nuke disposal site...</p><p>If there was a divine entity controlling fate, it sure had a twisted sense of humor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fan fiction (or any fiction, really) in years, but this idea has been tumbling about my head for a bit. I look forward to getting it out. Sharing is caring and all that jazz.
> 
> Enjoy.
> 
> xx
> 
> UPDATE: I've included "Maxson/Female SoSu" in the relationship tags, but please note that this is a "Danse/SoSu" focused fic. If the demand is there, I may write an alternate chapter centered on the Maxson/SoSu relationship that is posted separately from the main story. (I absolutely got the idea to include this disclaimer from freshneverfrozen and their amazing Maxson/SoSu fic.)
> 
> Additionally, I've changed the rating from "Mature" to "Explicit" in anticipation of future chapters.

It was a strange experience, staring down the barrel of a loaded gun knowing it was the last thing he'd ever see. It was much like staring into the eyes of an enraged alpha deathclaw, except a deathclaw could be controlled, beaten into submission with effort--not to mention the accompanying adrenaline rush of impending battle. But with a gun, whoever it's pointed towards is at the mercy of the twitch of a finger, a momentary increase in nerve, or perhaps a failing one. There was no control on his part and that made it all the worse. Danse never liked feeling out of control, a moot point considering the .357 Magnum pointed between his eyes.

He always knew his life was likely to end in a manner such as this, though he never anticipated that it would be at her hand. And yet there she was, her black hair wild, green eyes shining with fury, and her mouth twisted into a cruel grimace. She was a paragon of destruction; the Angel of Death herself.

It could've been worse, he supposed. For all he knew he was an Institute sleeper, mind implanted with false memories to make him blend until his protocols were activated. The very idea made him sick to his stomach.

No. No, this was definitely better. He must be the example, not the exception.

“On your knees, paladin.”

He nodded. This was it. Danse dropped to kneel on the concrete floor. He squeezed his eyes shut and thought back on his life, trying to catalog the few memories worth reliving in his final moments: him and Cutler getting drunk on whiskey, jumping naked off the dock near Rivet City on a dare; the first time he ever stepped into his own suit of power armor; the day he was promoted to the rank of “paladin”. He tried to recall the face of the young girl who'd made him a man when they were both still initiates at the Citadel, but for some reason he could only conjure the look on Nora's face and the taste of her mouth when she kissed him in the belly of that nuke disposal site. She'd protested leaving him there, insisting that she stay while he waited for the retrieval team to collect the cache, but Maxson had been explicit that she was to return to base alone and that Danse was to await the scribes' arrival. It was now obvious why. Despite her stubbornness, she was a soldier, and she nodded knowingly when he told her it was a direct order. Her expression softened, and--before he could stop her--she grabbed the grip handles on the chest of his power armor and pulled him forward until his lips crashed into her's. Her hand flitted up to the side of his face, and she ran her thumb across the rough stubble of his cheek--a hand that now held the gun that was pressed into his forehead with the same confidence. If there was a divine entity controlling his fate, it sure had a twisted sense of humor.

Danse opened his eyes to look up at her. He reasoned that if her face was to be the last thing he'd see, then he'd prefer to look upon the real thing. “It's been an honor, knight.”

Nora met his gaze and pulled back the hammer of the revolver with a click. They sat in complete silence for a beat as every intimate moment they'd shared in the last six months hung in the air between them. Every battle; every moment of candidness; every wound that was stimmed by delicate yet familiar touch. She narrowed her eyes, stiffened her arm and then…

_Crack!_

Danse awoke with a start, his body shooting bolt upright. Lightening shattered across the sky and lit up the room momentarily with a soft, blue glow, and a low rumbling thunder followed close behind it. He reminded himself that he wasn't in the bunker. In fact, he was miles and miles away from the bunker. He reminded himself that more than two years had passed since that night, though somehow the dreams were no less clear with time. He breathed a deep sigh and threw his legs over the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, awaiting the inevitable headache that nipped at the heels of his waking. It was routine enough--dreaming of his past, waking up wrapped in blankets drenched in cold sweat, a pounding in the center of his brain that punished him for his lack of sleep. Lately, the headaches seemed to arrive more frequently and without invitation from a restless night. He reached for the bottle that had become a permanent fixture next to wherever he'd made his bed for the night and took a swig. It wasn't great bourbon--the liquid burned harshly as it went down--but he found it usually helped him sleep. Usually.

The dreams weren't always bad, nor were they always so vivid. Sometimes they were simply incoherent vignettes of the life he'd known before: Haylen's ringing laughter; Brandis' curmudgeonly grumbling; Arthur Maxson clinking a glass full of liquor to his own in commiseration. Then there were… other dreams. Dreams that seemed so real that he felt the need to cling to the bed to remind himself of where he was; dreams that distorted his memory; dreams that clawed their way out from the deepest recesses of his head where the demons resided. A gun to the forehead. Cutler's mutated corpse. The sledgehammer impacting with Knight-Sergeant Keane's head.

He twisted and stretched, his limbs coming to life with several cracks and pops and stood up to walk through the darkened room towards the window. From behind the raindrops beading down the glass, he could just barely make out the subtle red glow from the frag mines he'd setup in front of the old farm house. It was one of the safer places he'd chosen to bunker down since leaving the Commonwealth. When settling down, most people made for the countryside for that exact reason. Certainly there was the occasional raider attack and every now and again one might stumble across a lone feral ghoul roaming out in the fields, but for the most part life outside of the cities was pretty quiet, if not a little mundane. People only settled in the city if they had no choice --or if they were missing a few too many brain cells.

He missed it like hell.

Not that he hadn't been occupied. He'd waited in that bunker for two weeks when he felt the atomic blast. With the Institute gone, he knew it was just a matter of time before a Brotherhood sweep team stumbled across his literal hole in the ground of a hideout and gunned him down. Worse yet, if he were found, both Nora and Haylen would be labeled as traitors and banished or--more likely--executed. And that was assuming they'd both survived the fighting. So instead of waiting around like a sitting duck, instead of waiting for Nora like he'd promised until after the Brotherhood had taken the Institute, he ran.

During that first year he traveled northwest, following rumors of large areas of rolling hills, dense forests, and a massive body of falling water that had remained virtually untouched by the bombs. He trekked along the former Canadian border until he made his way south, past the gaping crater that was said to once be the home of one of the greatest cities in the world. Now it was nothing but bones, mutilated buildings, and a few small tribes that were foolish enough to live there, all of it destroyed by man's own arrogance. He eventually found himself in the Pennsylvania Appalachians at the beginning of winter, low on supplies when he stumbled upon a small settlement just north of the Pitt. Most of the settlers had the same story: grew up in the Wastes, captured by slavers, forced into labor camps in the Pitt, worked in the steel mill. The majority of them were escaped slaves, though some were farmers. But none of them had any real, organized combat experience, which made things difficult when the slavers found their camp. As Danse refueled and restocked, he offered to help the community fight back against the slavers once and for all. After their success, they asked him to stay, claiming that he was their champion, their protector.

And stay he did for several months as he taught them everything from basic weapon maintenance to hand-to-hand combat. By the beginning of summer, they were more than capable of handling the next gang of slavers that hit their town on their own. They were certainly no Brotherhood of Steel, but they would've made the Minutemen proud.

During his time at the settlement, the frequency of his headaches and vivid, incoherent dreams went from occasional to ever-present. A visit to the town's healer did little to alleviate his complaints, stating that he showed no other signs of ill health. Rest and purified water, just as he had been told in another life. It was then that he made his decision.

Though his time with the settlement had been peaceful and fulfilling to his dutiful nature, once Danse saw that they could fend for themselves, he knew where he needed to go. He needed answers. He needed to know the truth.

He was going back to where it all started: the Capital Wasteland.

Danse ran a hand through his hair and down the back of his neck. His hair was longer now than it was at any point he could remember, just one of the many things to fall to the wayside since his exile. These days he'd taken to tying it back in a tidy bun just to keep it out of his eyes. 'Something I'll need to attend to in Rivet City,' he thought absently. He moved away from the window, swiping his laser rifle and maintenance kit from the makeshift table made of concrete blocks and headed towards the hall and down the stairs. He was sure his frag mines would've alerted him to any lurking intruders, but he stepped lightly despite himself. It was compulsory after years of combat training, though stealth was never really his strong suit.

He checked the can chimes at the bottom of the stairs to make sure they were hung firmly; wandered into the dark living room and triple checked the barricade of tables and chairs blocking the front door. Of course, he already knew everything was secure, but it was this little ritual that kept his thoughts occupied whenever insomnia plagued him. It was a routine he'd developed during his time with the Brotherhood. Ordinarily he might begin compiling his stock, preparing himself for his next move, but the surging storm outside was forcing him to remain patient.

He resigned himself to the kitchen where he lit the lantern on the cracked vinyl counter, unrolled the maintenance kit next to it, set his rifle down, and cracked open the case. He carefully removed each delicate piece from the guts of the rifle, running a brush through the barrel and flushing it with solvent. He worked slowly and methodically, though truth be told he could've completed the task in less than two minutes. It was a menial chore, if not completely unnecessary, but it was the closest Danse ever came to meditation.

It was still pouring when he finished assembling his rifle.

He smoked a cigarette.

He took a few pulls off the bottle of bourbon.

He cranked out one hundred push ups.

He disassembled and cleaned his 10mm pistol.

He cleaned his combat knife until it gleamed.

He smoked two more cigarettes.

He flipped through an old book he'd found in the upstairs bathroom filled with prewar photographs of battleships and B-29 bombers, seemingly of historical significance, though most of the pages were damaged or torn.

Then finally, _finally_ , around 5 AM the rain let up.

Danse quickly gathered his gear. It wasn't much: a change of clothes, a toothbrush, his knife, the two guns, ammo, several stimpacks, some ragstag jerky, and a package of Fancy Lad snack cakes. And of course, his old Brotherhood of Steel uniform. It no longer pained him to look at it like it once had, though it had been relegated to nothing more than padding he used to wrap up his more fragile belongings. He placed the items on the uniform, rolled it up, shoved it in a knapsack, and began pulling down the can chimes and barricade from the front door.

When he opened the door the scent of fresh rain and wet earth met his nose. The sky was just beginning to lighten overhead, the cloud cover heavy and still threatening to spill more rain. The damp grass made a squelching noise beneath his boots as he made his way to the old wood shed around back. He knelt in the wetness to disarm the frag mines set in front of the door as well as the strategically placed wire trap. Then, with a creak, the double doors of the shed swung open and _thunked_ against the siding.

And there it was: standing before him was the foreboding shadow of a full set of Mk V T-60 power armor. The Brotherhood insignia had long since been scratched off the chest plate and arms, but it was otherwise impeccable, maintained with love and gentle care. Danse removed the chest piece, placed the knapsack in the cavity inside, put it back on the frame, and opened up the suit with a twist of the back crank. Once inside with the armor gripped around him, he felt secure and whole again. He was anonymous and intimidating--a soldier once more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the student becomes the teacher.
> 
> Thanks for reading.
> 
> xx

“Aww, shite...” Cait lifted up her foot to check the bottom of her boot. A dark substance that looked like mud, but smelled more like the rotting underside of a mirelurk carcass coated the tread. “And just what kind of fresh hell is this? No, ye know what?” She pulled her knife from the side pocket in her other boot and began picking the tread clean with the blunt edge. “I don't think I want to know.” Nora exaggerated a long sigh into the receiver of her power helmet. Cait flicked a narrowed set of eyes in her direction and flicked the suspicious substance from her boot in the other. “Well, if I had me own damn suit of power armor, I'd probably care a little less about shite on me boots.”

“The combination of that Brotherhood uniform and combat armor is more than adequate for protection. And as for the boots,” Nora added. “I'm sure a good scrubbing will get that right off.” They'd had this conversation too many times to count. It was a hard and fast rule: initiates do not receive personal power armor... especially not ones as mouthy as she. Nora turned back around to continue their patrol. The sun was already beginning to set behind the hills; she presumed their chances of making it back in time for muster were slim and the darker it got, the more trouble they were likely to encounter along the way.

“Let's keep moving, initiate.” Nora continued down the derelict side street, eyes scanning the dark corners that were so beloved by all manner of Commonwealth horrors.

“Wait! Don't leave me,” Cait called after her, the quick sound of her footfall moving closer from behind. “And while we're on the subject, has anyone ever mentioned that these Brotherhood uniforms are a wee bit tight.”

“Yes. You. All the time.”

And then suddenly, she heard it, that choked hiss calling out from the shadows that never missed a chance to make Nora's blood run cold. Super mutants she could handle. Raiders? No problem. But ferals… fucking feral ghouls were the stuff of prewar horror stories. It'd been nearly three years since she thawed from that ice box and fell at the feet of her murdered husband, two and a half years since she joined the Brotherhood of Steel and wasted the Institute, and yet somehow she could never quite get used to the devastating monstrosity that was the feral ghoul. Each time she put one down, she tried not to think about the fact that the abomination she'd just slaughtered could've been her next door neighbor in Sanctuary Hills or the kid that bagged her groceries at the Super Duper Mart.

“Hold your position,” Nora hissed to her companion. “Feral, eleven o'clock.” Cait lowered to a crouch behind a burned out vehicle chassis, flicking off the safety on her laser pistol. She'd proudly modified it recently with a short range scope and never missed a chance to use it before moving in on an assault. She'd finally learned the value of assessing the threat before riding in guns blazing.

“Shit,” Cait cursed under her breath. “That's no ordinary feral, boss. That's a goddamned reaver. Jesus, look at the size of that fella.”

“Okay, yeah… no worries. We've got this.” Nora was suddenly incredibly grateful that she had her power helmet on. There's nothing like seeing your commanding officer weep from fear just before taking on an enemy. “Alright, grab that mine out of your pack. I'm going to try and get the sneak up on him. I'll lay the bottlecap mine down about ten yards up. When I give the command, we start firing. Try and steer him into the mine. If he spots me before I return, begin suppressing fire.” As Cait pulled her pack open and handed her the mine, Nora was hit with an abrupt sensation of déjà vu--a time when she was the initiate, a time when her C.O. had laid out the same maneuver for a raider leader they'd been targeting. _'I wonder if Danse was pissing himself then just like I am now?'_ Not likely. She shook the memory from her mind. They had a job to do. There was no room for musing on the sensitivities of a damn machine, especially not a machine that had failed to keep a promise to her. “And Cait,” Nora added, reloading the fusion cell on her rifle. “Be sure to aim for the head.”

\---

Truth was she was proud of how far Cait had come in the last few months. When Nora found her she was fighting her way through every lowlife degenerate the Combat Zone had to offer. She was a scrappy, sharp-tongued, uncooperative junkie and while life was unkind to most people in the Commonwealth, for Cait it had been especially cruel. Nora understood this about her and was patient, but she was just about the only one.

When she'd first returned to base from the clearing mission in the Combat Zone, a very intoxicated Cait in tow, the general consensus was that perhaps Sentinel Wallace was unaware of the fact that a raider had followed her into camp. But no, she was quite aware of her presence and this civilian was no raider, thank you very much. And in fact, she'd be taking her straight up to the Prydwen to see Maxson just as soon as they'd both had a wash and a hot meal. But she didn't have to wait. Nora had barely stepped out of her power armor and laid Cait down in her private quarters to sleep it off when Maxson had burst through the gate of the base like someone had shouted “free tech”.

“Sentinel Wallace,” a youthful, commanding voice called out to her as she locked the door to her quarters. “Please tell me that my men are mistaken when they say that you've brought an unauthorized civilian onto base with you.” Nora turned to face the man. To say he was an imposing figure was a bit of an understatement, all broad shoulders and brooding eyebrows. Though she could never admit this to him, she'd found this persona of his to be intimidating as all hell when they first met, this “Elder Maxson” character he portrayed when dressing down his subordinates. It didn't take long for that notion to dissipate. At the moment, it appeared the elder had just returned from his early morning run. His hair was damp and he'd traded in his officer's uniform for a pair of fatigues. A triangular patch of sweat had bled through on the chest of the plain green shirt he wore.

“All due respect, Elder,” she responded, maintaining a smooth, coy exterior. “But I can't in good conscience say that to you.” Maxson's eyes darkened, his shadowy expression telling Nora all she needed to know about how this conversation was going to unfold. Could that brow of his possibly go any lower? They probably thought she didn't notice, but the two guards flanking Maxson on the opposite side of the gate shared a brief, conspiratorial glance. She was well aware of the old rumor that her and Maxson were bunk buddies and a passionate debate between the Elder and his senior officer was sure to fan the flames of such a water cooler controversy, but at this point she had no room to care. She should have anticipated Arthur's reaction though. “Permission to speak freely, elder?”

“Follow me.” Maxson walked past her and down the hall and she followed close behind. They turned the corner into a small, unused office littered with disassembled protectron components and slouching filing cabinets. The door was barely shut when he whirled around with a large finger pointing directly at her face. “What possible excuse could you have for bringing a civilian into our camp without prior authorization?”

“Arthur, I had no choice.” Nora slithered around the pointed finger and perched herself on the large metal desk. “She was passed off to me like… _property_. What was I supposed to do with her?” The elder shut his eyes and pressed his fingers to his forehead. It was the pose she recognized as Maxson clinging desperately to his composure, probably counting backwards from ten in his head. She knew he wasn't an unreasonable man. Short-tempered, yes--he was only twenty-three after all--but he needed those constructs. In a society ruled by chaos, the Brotherhood owed its success to the stringent codex by which it was governed. She understood that... and she knew that without it she would likely be just another dead vault dweller rotting in a super mutant's meat bag.

“What was your plan then? To keep her locked in your bunk or to let her roam our base freely? She may not be property, but she's not your pet either.”

“I've seen her fight. She handles herself well. I think she'd be a fine addition to our ranks.”

“And I'm supposed to what, just let her join because you said she's good in a fight? She's wild and untested. That's not how we do things.”

“That's why you let me join, isn't it?”

“Paladi-” He caught himself and it was hard for Nora to contain her satisfaction. He was fumbling and she'd known him long enough now to understand how to steer the conversation to her favor. “That's different. You know that's different.”

“As one of your most senior officers, I beg to differ. The officer that sponsored me was below the rank I hold now and this civilian knows the seedy underbelly of the Commonwealth. She's navigated the parts of the Commonwealth that recon and clearing patrols can't access. She could be an asset.”

“She could be a spy!”

“God damn it, Arthur...” She beat a balled fist into the desk. Great, now she was the one losing her temper, a fatal misstep. “Then take a blood sample and run it against your records! What the hell is the point of keeping all of that Institute data if you're not going to use it?”

“Do you truly believe it's worth the risk? Do you actually believe that taking in this stray is worth compromising the safety of your brothers and sisters?”

That was it. It was time to go nuclear. “I have followed your every command to the letter since you-” She dare not speak that name. “...since Listening Post Bravo. I've obeyed every order, every protocol and every tenet you've put into place without question, but this 'stray' is one of the very people we've sworn to help… that _you've_ sworn to help. And if there's any chance that being with us could better her life, then I say it's worth it. Absolutely.”

Shots fired.

The two of them often danced around the subject of Listening Post Bravo, but it was rarely spoken of directly. It was a memory that neither one of them cared to revisit. She had finally forgiven him for ordering her to carry out the impossible and he had finally forgiven her for failing to do so. But in that moment Nora felt it necessary to remind him of how loyal she was to his leadership, despite the position he'd put her in that night. Arthur would never see it that way, but in this moment he uncharacteristically acquiesced.

“Tell me, Nora,” he said, meeting her eyes. It disgusted him that he could never manage to say “no” to her. “Were you always this stubborn?”

“I'm only stubborn when there's something worth being stubborn for.”

He sighed heavily under the weight of his submission. Arthur Maxson had taken down a deathclaw at the age of 13. He'd waged war against formidable enemies and almost single-handedly unified the once splintered Brotherhood of Steel. But this silver-tongued succubus was one foe he would surrender to nearly every time. It was absurd and he felt like a fool. “Fine," he muttered. "Get her cleaned up and have her report to the Prydwen immediately. I'm sure Knight Captain Cade will have his work cut out for him. From what I hear, she's one severed head on a spike away from being a raider.”

“Thank you, Arthur. _Elder_ ,” she corrected herself. The air of familiarity was suddenly drained from the room as if someone had pulled a plug from the kitchen sink. Maxson gave a curt nod and opened the door behind him.

“She'll be placed under your direct mentorship. I won't have any of the paladins taking responsibility for her.” He lowered his voice. “I implore you, do not make me regret this.”

She felt it would not have been an opportune moment to mention Cait's crippling psycho addiction.

\---

Initially, the attempt to recruit Cait did not go well. When she awoke late the next morning, Nora was patiently waiting next to the bed with several links of brahmin sausage, dry toast and coffee and began explaining the opportunity Cait had been presented with.

Nora had never seen a tray of food chucked at a wall with such ferocity.

“Fuck ye if ye think I'd ever join your goddamn dick measuring club, ye fuckin' fascist pigs!”

Nora managed to escape the room before a steaming hot cup of instant coffee was thrown at the place her head had been moments prior. Proctor Ingram lumbered past in her power armor just in time to hear the sound of ceramic hitting the door, followed by a chorus of “let me out of this fuckin' hell hole” and “what the hell kinda door locks from the outside” punctuated with an emphatic “fascist bastards”.

“How's that going?” Ingram nodded her head towards the door that had Nora's back pressed flat against it.

“Oh, she'll come around,” Nora said with a worried smile. “Hopefully.”

Ingram chuckled. “The Brotherhood's not for everyone, Wallace. We can't all be soldiers.” Ingram paused at the sound of a blunt object hitting the wall on the other side of the door. “And you can't hold her here against her will.”

“I know, I know,” Nora sighed. “And if she really doesn't want to stay after hearing me out, then fine. She can walk right out the front gates. I just…" Nora winced at the sound of shattered glass on the other side of the door and hoped to any god who would listen that it wasn't something important. "If she leaves right now she'll either be right back where she was when I found her or she'll be dead in a month. Besides,” she added. “I would never hear the end of it from Elder Maxson if I just let her leave after begging him to let her stay.” Ingram looked at the door thoughtfully. A pragmatist in the truest sense of the word, Ingram wanted to tell Nora to release Cait--that she'd likely be more trouble than her worth. But in that moment, her desire to help a friend outweighed her penchant for practicality.

As Cait's shouting turned into a low stream of expletives, Ingram's face lit up with sudden inspiration.

“I've got an idea."

A hopeful smile flickered across Nora's face. "That's more than I've got," she responded.

"No promises, though. It might not work and at worst, it might leave you as nothing more than a blood splatter on the concrete in the Fens. But at best," Ingram offered a mechanical shrug. "It might appeal to her, uh... 'spirited' nature.”

“I'm open to anything at this point.”

“Alright then, follow me...”

Two hours later there was a knock on the heavy metal door.

“Cait?”

No response.

“Cait, are you ready to talk?”

“I'm ready to fuckin' leave,” came a muffled response.

Nora sighed. “That's fair, and if I open the door we can talk about that.” Silence. “Are you going to try and stab me if I open this door?”

“I dunno, now that you put the idea in me head, it's hard to say.”

“Cait...” Nora warned.

Cait rolled her eyes... or Nora assumed she did. “No, I won't try and stab ye,” she replied, tone laced with exasperation. Very slowly, very carefully Nora unlocked and opened the door. Cait laid on the cot in the center of the room, arms crossed over her chest, her expression stoic and green eyes staring up the cracks in the ceiling. Nora gingerly stepped over the shattered ceramic from what was once a cup of coffee and shut the door behind her again. She was somewhat surprised to find that her quarters weren't in _complete_ disarray based on the amount of noise she'd heard earlier, but then she noticed the blood on Cait's knuckles that matched several red swipes on the wall and several more on the inside of the door. And then her eyes found the empty syringe pack of psycho laying on the dirty concrete next to the rejected brahmin sausage. Nora walked over and settled into the winged armchair that sat next to the desk. She was silent for a moment as she collected her thoughts, mapped out her points and decided on which angle to proceed with her argument. Perhaps she would get to shake the dust off of that law degree after all.

“You know, I get it.” Nora offered a half smile that was unmet. “I know you don't believe me, but I do. I get that joining the Brotherhood would be hard. You'd have to sacrifice some things that I know you… enjoy. And you'd have to follow orders. Believe me, that's not my favorite part. In fact, I'd say it's my least favorite.” Cait rolled on her side to look at Nora, dirty red locks splayed against a soft, white pillow.

“Look lady, you don't even know me. I'm no soldier. I may've been off my tits last night, but I heard what those blokes in the tin cans out there said about me. And they're right, I might as well be a raider.”

“So is that what you'll do with your new found freedom then? Go and join a raider gang? Murder and rape anyone who looks at you wrong? I hear they'll let you do all the drugs you want.”

“Fuck you.”

“What then? You'll… move out to the country? Find a bit of land? Start a farm? Maybe settle down and have a kid or two?” Nora placed an elbow on the sloping arm of the chair and placed a chin in her hand. "I may've just met you, but something tells me you aren't the settling down type."

“Well, now you're just being an arsehole.”

“So what then?”

Cait opened her mouth to respond, but her brain hadn't quite caught up. “I.. I dunno, probably… umm, go to Goodneighbor. See if Hancock's lookin' for an extra bodyguard.”

“The mayor already has a bodyguard. I've met her. She doesn't care for competition.”

“Well, then I'd be a gun for hire.”

“Huh… you know, Cait, that may not be a bad idea. Except I don't know many people who would ask a psycho addict to watch their back with a loaded weapon, much less pay for it.”

“I'll get clean.”

“Really. By yourself. _In Goodneighbor_.”

At that moment, there was a firm knock at the door. Both women turned at the sound. “Sentinel Wallace, I'm ready when you are,” a voice called to her from the other side.

“Be out in a minute, lancer.” Nora turned back to Cait who was looking much smaller and far more receptive than when she'd woken up that morning. “Look, if you really think you'd be better off on your own in Goodneighbor, I won't stop you... but you could have a good life here--a _meaningful_ life."

"There's no such thing as a meaningful life," Cait scoffed. "That's a fairy tale mums tell their babies so they don't go offing themselves when they grow up and realize the world is shite."

Nora couldn't help but let out a small laugh. Despite the fact that she was sitting in a bombed out airport in the middle of the fucking post-apocalypse, she was still having the same old existential arguments she'd had in the middle of Greenwich Village over 200 years prior. "Well, if you'd like, I'd be happy to sit here and wax philosophical about the meaning of life all day, but before we head down that road, there's something I'd like to show you.”

\---

“Oh, fuck me!” Cait ran towards the vertibird as it idled on the landing pad. “Look at that bloody minigun! Look at the size of it!” Nora was grateful that Cait had taken off ahead of her because it would've been impossible to hide the grin that had unwittingly broken across her face. Ingram was a genuis. If this didn't convince Cait to join the Brotherhood, then it truly was not meant to be. Nora could admit that, at least. Cait sidled right up to the minigun and began inspecting the barrels.

“Wanna go for a ride?” Nora asked and Cait's face snapped to her with a flabbergasted expression.

“What, in this thing?” She jutted her thumb back at the vertibird behind her. “Are you kiddin'?”

“Unless you're afraid...”

“Ha! Fuck no!” And with that, Cait clambered up into the cargo area, ignoring the hand offered to her by one of the nearby lancers. Nora climbed up after her and within seconds the machine had lifted high into the air. The vertibird rides were never Nora's favorite. It wasn't so much the heights that got to her (as evidenced by the number of times she'd jumped from the Prydwen's deck in her power armor). It was the lack of control she hated. At least when she jumped, she trusted her body and the craftsmanship of her armor to do what it needed to, but in a vertibird she was leaving her safety entirely in the hands of whoever was sitting in the pilot's seat. Cait, on the other hand, came alive in that moment.

As they flew high above the coast, Cait held tight to the safety bar and stuck her head outside of the cockpit and over the ocean. The force from the wind blasted her hair back and stung her eyes, but she'd never been happier. “She needs to stay inside!” The pilot shouted back to them. Cait griped, but begrudgingly pulled herself back in and turned to face the caving city skyline. Nora spotted a family of mirelurks crawling along the beach.

“You think you can hit those 'lurks?”

Cait snorted. “Does the mayor of Diamond City have a big fat arse?” Cait took a hold of the minigun with both hands and unleashed hellfire onto the mirelurks and one by one, each creature fell into the sand onto their tiny, ugly faces. Cait was beaming and suddenly she realized that she couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so… free.

“If anyone asks, she never touched the mini,” Nora assured the pilot.

“D'ya think we can see the Combat Zone from here?”

“We can see what ever you want from up here,” Nora replied and with that the vertibird veered sharply to the west. Cait was silent as they floated past the Commons, eyes scanning the area she'd reluctantly called home for the last three years. Nora noticed that she seemed to always be scanning; assessing her surroundings for the next threat. It was a reactive habit instilled in many victims of abuse. She was a survivor and for all of her unpolished edges, Nora recognized that. She didn't know exactly what Cait's story was and she wasn't going to ask, but she knew it would come out whenever Cait was ready to tell. And when that day came-- _if_ that day came--Nora would listen.

“So what do you think, Cait? The Commonwealth looks a lot better from the sky, doesn't it?”

“I can't argue that.” Cait continued to gaze out at the landscape before her. Nora almost hated to break her from her reverie.

“This doesn't have to be the last time you see it this way, you know.”

“Why are you tryin' so hard?” Cait broke her gaze to fix it on Nora's face, confused and perhaps a touch defensive.

“I guess it's because I recognize something in you.” Nora gave a small smile. “I look at you and I like what I see. You're a fighter and you're tough, and I don't just mean that in the physical sense.”

“Who are you, me mum?” Cait snorted. “I already had one of those. Didn't much care for it.”

“Trust me, I'm not cut out to be anyone's mother.” Nora quickly shoved out of her mind the intrusive memory of a gentle baby boy sleeping soundly against her breast, along with the stabbing pain in her gut that accompanied it. “So what do you say? Will you join us 'fascist pigs' or should I have Lancer Banyon here drop you off at the gate of Goodneighbor?” The pilot turned her head around and quirked an eyebrow at Nora, who returned the gesture with a small, reassuring shake of her head.

Cait became silent again, picking at the grime beneath her fingernails.“I'd need to get clean,” she whispered. “And this ain't no 'throw all the chems into the sewer and be done with it' kind of deal.” Cait swallowed, wading through the discomfort of basic human intimacy. “I got a monkey on my back the size of a behemoth and it won't let up easy.”

“And we can help with that. All you have to do is say 'yes'.” Nora held out a hand, an offer.

Cait had never stood for anything in her life other than revenge and self-interest. It was all she knew, the only forces strong enough to drive her to do what was necessary. Well, and fear. Joining the Brotherhood would be a different kind of life altogether. It wouldn't be easy, but as Cait pondered the thought, she realized that neither was anything else she'd experienced up to that point. At least this kind of difficult would keep a roof over her head and food in her belly. It was her watershed moment.

“Ah, fuck it, why the hell not then.” Cait grasped Nora's still outstretched hand and shook. Nora was sure her smile could've split her entire face in two.

“Lancer,” she addressed the pilot. “Take us directly to the Prydwen. Our newest initiate will need to complete her medical exam.”

Cait's remonstrative groaning could've been heard all the way to the Glowing Sea.

\---

Nora stepped heel to toe, moving closer and closer towards to reaver. Very slowly, very cautiously, she set down the bottlecap mine and flicked the switch, a small chirp signifying its readiness. Really, the only difference between a reaver and an average ghoul was the sheer size. It was long speculated that reavers were the remnants of soldiers left over from the great war as evidenced by the shoddy combat armor they seemed to often wear, though no one knew for sure. All that was known with certainty was that they were stronger, faster and far deadlier than the average feral and one typically could not be put down with light artillery alone. Nora returned to Cait who was still hidden behind the cover of the rusted out chassis. “How's it looking?”

Cait looked through her scope once more. “I think… maybe… oh, Jesus. It looks like the little fella isn't alone.”

“How many more?” Nora hated to ask.

“Ah, let's see… one, two… and three. There's three tota- oh, _shite_!” Cait backed off her scope. “Boss, I think we've been spotted.” Nora tried the best she could to peek over the hood of the car inconspicuously, though that was quite the feat in power armor. The reaver was standing upright, leathery, swollen neck twisting back and forth, clearly agitated. It was then that Nora saw the other two smaller ghouls, one of which was staring right at them. The smaller ghoul gave a throaty hiss and lunged forward, straight towards the mine intended for the reaver. Nora rang out three red crackling bolts at the ghoul from her laser rifle. Stomach. Shoulder. Head shot. On the third shot the target vaporized into a glowing pile of ashes, just in time to reveal the other two creatures running right towards them.

“Cait! Aim for the reaver!”

As commanded, Cait began firing along side Nora, red hot beams burning into the flesh of the ghouls as they approached. The second ghoul went down easy enough, turning to ash like the first, but the reaver was a tough bastard. And _fast_. Darting left and right, it continued to bypass the soldiers' assault and danced out of the path of the bottlecap mine. Nora tried to steer it back towards the intended path, aiming for the reaver's right side, but it looked like it may've been too little too late. Then suddenly, a deafening boom erupted as a red beam hit and set off the mine. The reaver was just close enough that both legs were shredded by the force of it. Nora turned to Cait in wonder, Cait winking and blowing the smoke from her pistol's barrel, an impression of one of those old world pin ups.

The women approached the reaver, lying on its stomach, writhing and clawing at their feet.

“Would you like to do the honors, Initiate?”

Cait placed a foot on the reaver's back and aimed her pistol directly at its skull.

“With pleasure, Sentinel.”

It was the first time Nora could think of where Cait had addressed her by her formal title.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the prodigal son returns home.
> 
> xx

****Danse knew he was close to DC before he could even see the crumbling remains of the Washington Monument jutting up into the horizon like a silo. The air was laced with the smell of sea water and the sulfuric run off of the flooded metro system. It smelled like home.

The salty, humid air clung to his skin like a spider's web and steamed up the lenses of his helmet, forcing him to pause by the swampy banks of the Potomac to air it out. His power armor was equipped with an internal cooling system, but cycling it required extra power and he was down to his last fusion core. He couldn't risk running out before hitting Rivet City. He was already pushing his luck.

With a hiss from the hydraulics the suit opened up, providing Danse with blissful relief from the heat in the enclosed space. He'd found refuge in the form of an abandoned shack beneath an overpass just north of Wilhelm's Wharf. Danse had searched the shack for evidence of an owner before exiting his armor. He could only assume that the previous occupant had perished out in the wastes somewhere when he found a suitcase full of clothes and personal effects, along with several bottles of untouched Aqua Pura and a half drank bottle of vodka, all of which was coated in a thick layer of dust.

The water in DC was cleaner than the water in the Commonwealth, but not by much. Residual radiation made maintaining the rad-free water in the tidal basin a challenge, but the closer one got to the purifier the more drinkable it became. The cleaner water also had an unintentional side effect of warding off the mirelurks that once infested the Potomac's shores. It was a luxury that was unknown to the people of the Commonwealth. Danse sat on the floor of the shack, unlaced his boots and peeled off his socks. It was just late enough in the day that he decided a dip in the water to cool off was of minimal risk. He undressed completely until there was nothing left between him and the wastes except that hot, sticky DC August air. He waded into the river, his toes sinking into the mud. He brought his hands down and cupped handfuls of cool water to splash onto his face and scrub through the unkempt beard that obscured his wide, masculine features. In the abandoned shack, the previous tenant had mercifully provided him with a tiny sliver of soap which Danse used to wash the dried sweat and grime from his body. He pressed forward into the deeper waters until it was high enough for him to swim. As his head dipped below the surface, he was immediately pulled back to a time when he was a tall, gangly initiate, back when Project Purity had first been deployed and the Jefferson Memorial was churning out fresh water into the tidal basin for the first time in 200 years.

Things had seemed so complicated then. Prior to joining the Brotherhood, his life had primarily revolved around keeping himself alive and free of radiation poisoning. It was a most basic of necessities, yet it could be a tremendous challenge even on the best of days. Then he joined the Brotherhood and realized life could be about so much more than scaving the ruins and drifting from camp to camp, but with this knowledge his world also became infinitely more complex. Suddenly he was consumed by discipline, regulation and tactical planning. There was always something to be done, a mission to complete, an area to be secured. After the eradication of the Enclave, the Brotherhood set in on rebuilding the Capital Wasteland. It was initially successful, but after the death of Owyn Lyons and the subsequent falling of Sarah Lyons, there was a large push to return the Brotherhood to its original prime directive. Slowly, the Steel troops began withdrawing from DC trading hubs like Rivet City and Megaton and looking to the north. Rumors of perverse science and a new abuse of technology known as androids or “synths” had spread down to the Capital Wasteland. Once Arthur Maxson had come into power, most interests in the DC area were all but abandoned.

In spite of the complexities, it had also been a bright time in his otherwise bleak existence. For the first time in his life, he had a real home. He had a family. But as it turned out, everything he lived for, everything important to him was built on a foundation made of sand.

As Danse floated on his back, looking up at the overcast sky, he relinquished to the fact that he was once again alone in the Capital Wasteland with no brothers or sisters to keep him, no bed to call his own that he could return to. Not all that long ago the thought would've terrified him, having nothing tangible to keep him grounded, but if the last two years had taught him anything it was that perhaps there could exist a life with purpose outside of the Brotherhood of Steel after all.

Danse made his way back towards the tiny wooden structure and reluctantly pulled his clothes back on. He laid down on the vacant bed roll to flip through the mostly intact copy of _Brave New World_ he'd saved from an abandoned schoolhouse, waiting for the cover of night. Somewhere between the protagonists venturing off to the American southwest and their discovery of the savage child, Danse found himself walking through a dense forest of leafless trees. Dusk had settled upon the Commonwealth and they needed to seek shelter. Fortunately, Nora knew of a secure location nearby.

“It's not much further, just up over the crest.” She kept a steady pace, but even through the distortion of the ear piece in his helmet, he could hear the strain in her voice.

“Initiate, do we need to take a moment?”

“No, no. Let's just keep moving.”

“It's obvious that you're injured.”

“We're almost there.”

And it was true--before they even reached the top of the hill, the large red torpedo was visible above the peak. They reached the crest and the old Red Rocket station stood before them, the solar powered lamps on the roof lighting up the rocket itself in a cheerful glow. Danse followed Nora's lead as she crossed the road and made her way into the garage. She exited her power armor and left it standing in the corner of the darkened room before walking over to a table on the opposite end and lighting an old oil lantern with a flip of a lighter. She repeated the process in all four corners of the garage until it was flooded with the dim flicker of firelight. The filling station appeared to be lived in and she seemed to know her way around. When Danse had expressed his concern about their distance from the Prydwen and the late hour of the day, Nora had told him she “knew a place nearby”, but he didn't anticipate that it would be so… habitable. A mattress laid over stacks of wooden pallets was shoved against the corner of the room and next to it stood a heavy brown trunk. Nora took a knee down before it, unlocked the mechanism on the front and pulled out a pair of yellowing long johns.

“Do you… live here?”

“There's only one bed. We can sleep in shifts.”

He took her indirect response as confirmation. It was then that he noticed the dark mass that had pooled just above Nora's left hip. Danse exited his power armor next to hers.

“That wound needs tending to.” He was already removing the chest piece from his power armor and pulling out a small medic bag.

“Yeah, I was going to get to that,” she said, gingerly grabbing her hip as she stood up as if she'd suddenly just remembered the pain.

“Let me see.”

“You don't have to.”

“Yes,” he said firmly. “I do.” Long before he'd ever met Nora, Danse had felt a decided responsibility when it came to the welfare of those under his command. It was a responsibility he never took lightly, but after watching Recon Team Gladius diminish from seven down to three, it became especially personal to him. He knelt down on the concrete floor next to the bed and patted the mattress. “Sit,” he commanded. She wanted to object, wanted to tell him she could take care of herself. He could see it in her expression. And he didn't doubt for a minute that she could take care of it on her own. They'd only been traveling together for three weeks, but it was already clear to him that she was completely capable. However, as a companion of sorts, he felt compelled to earn her trust. And as her leader, he needed her to allow herself to be taken care of by him, to trust him completely. It was plain to see that vulnerability was not her strong suit, something she would need to work on.

If only it were that simple.

Nora bit the inside of her lip and, instead of rejecting the offer, she brought her hand up to the zipper of her blue vault suit and pulled down, revealing collarbones and the pale flesh of her chest that glowed even in the dim orange light. She stopped once she reached a certain point.

“Um, I… I don't have a...” She pointed to her chest. Danse averted his gaze immediately. Of course, like most vault dwellers her sense of modesty was still aligned with old world conventions. How quickly he forgot. To him, a woman's breasts were just another part of the human anatomy. It was all rather clinical, as far as he was willing to admit. To her, they were a private matter.

Danse heard the zipper move the rest of the way down the suit and watched as her shadow moved across the room, and felt the mattress next to him shift as she settled on the edge of the bed. “Go ahead then,” she said. Danse returned his eyes to her, her naked back facing him, angular profile outlined by the warm light as she looked back at him over her shoulder. Above her hip and reaching about a quarter of the way across her back was a bloodied gash, the telltale signs of a deathclaw swipe. Without her power armor, a blow like that would have undoubtedly cut her torso clean in half. Danse pulled a piece of gauze out of the medic bag and poured a bit of purified water on it, cleaning the wound of dried blood. Nora let out a hiss and jerked slightly as the cloth swiped across the wound, but allowed him to continue his work with little protest. With the injury clean, he pulled a stimpack out of the bag and placed his calloused palm on the indent of her waistline just above the area. He felt her body tense beneath the familiar touch, but loosen almost as quickly.

“This part may sting a small amount.” With gentle pressure, he pulled the wound open ever so slightly with his thumb and shot a bit of the liquid from the stim into the gash. She emitted the smallest of cries and the hand that sat next to her on the bed dug into the blanket as he then injected the rest of the stimpack into the damaged site. “Are you alright?” he asked, his voice low. She nodded. He rubbed his large hand along the slope of her waist in a soothing gesture, her tension dissolving beneath it, and suddenly he noticed how soft her skin was to the touch. And he wasn't exactly sure how he hadn't noticed before the two dimples that punctuated the place where her back met her middle like an ellipses begging to be completed. Then out of nowhere, he was visited by the uninvited image of how those two little indents might look if she were bent over the edge of the mattress, their bodies connected.

Oh, _shit_.

Danse shook the image from his mind and pulled his hand back as if he'd burned it on a hot surface. No, he most certainly did _not_ need to be thinking about her like that. He was her commanding officer and she, an initiate. It was important that their relationship remain professional, regardless of how beautiful of a woman she was or how sculpted the muscles of her back and shoulders looked in the low light of the laterns. God damn it.

“Paladin?”

He looked back up at her face.

“Paladin...” Her voice repeated the word with an unmoving mouth. “Paladin armor.”

“What did you say?” He looked at her questioningly.

Suddenly he was jolted awake. It was dark. He wasn't sure how long he'd slept. Then he heard it, that characteristic heavy footfall of power armor and the distortion of voices projected through the helmets.

“How do you know it's paladin armor? How do you know it's even Brotherhood armor?”

“Come on, Bradshaw. Use your eyes. Look at the arm plates.”

“Okay, so the insignia's been scratched off. How can you tell it's 'paladin'?”

“Do I have to do everything for you? Look at the lead coating…” There was a clang of metal tapping on the outer shield. “Look at the thickness of the armor itself. This is mark II armor. They only issue the good stuff to paladins and sentinels.”

“They're probably still around.”

“No way, man. Nobody just leaves a full T-60 set laying around like that. I'll bet they drowned trying to find caps at the bottom of the river. They're probably floating halfway to the Atlantic by now.”

“I don't know, anybody tough enough to take on a paladin and rip them out of their power armor is probably one hard bastard. I bet they're still here, watching us.”

“You scared or something, knight?”

“Are you not?”

Danse began to panic. How could he have been so careless? Although he tried to be grateful for the fact that he'd left his power armor as far away from the shack as he had; the knights hadn't seemed to notice the dwelling tucked up beneath the bridge just yet.

“So how you wanna do this? You take the shoulders, I take the feet?”

“We're not carrying a full set of T-60 all the way to the Citadel, Bradshaw.”

“Well, what then? Call for transport?”

“We are _definitely_ not wasting a signal grenade on an empty suit of armor. Christ, how did you even make it through basic?”

“Must have been my wily charms.”

“Right. Okay, just grab the fusion core. We'll come back with one of the grunts and have them walk it back.” Danse listened as the knight removed the core from his suit and the two set off to the south. He peeked between the slats of the shack wall and watched as the headlamps bobbed and disappeared behind a crumbling storefront. Quickly, he scrambled to his feet, pulled on his boots and ran to the lifeless husk that was his power armor. Though it pained him to do so, it was pointless to attempt to move it without the fusion core and so he had no choice but to leave it behind. It was the lest vestige of his time in the Brotherhood--his exoskeleton. And it was often the only thing that separated him from certain death for the last ten years of his life since he was promoted to paladin. And now he was going to leave it sitting in the mud on the river bank like refuse. He grabbed his rucksack containing all of his belongings from the chest piece, cleared the shack of anything worth grabbing and set off across the bridge towards downtown DC.

\---

It was much like he'd remembered it. Crumbling concrete buildings that fell into position 200 years ago and had remained that way ever since; impassable corridors filled with rubble and broken re-bar twisting up towards the sky. There had been a time when these buildings were a testament to the almighty power of the democratic system; now they were its eulogy, swallowed by the landscape, details fading like the words on a neglected headstone.

He clung to the shadows, trying to recall the fastest way to Rivet City. He'd been a fool to let his guard down so close to the Citadel. The Brotherhood may've moved their interests northward, but they would never abandon the Capital Wasteland completely--not with the purifier still operational, which was sure to be heavily guarded.

It suddenly dawned on him that with the Citadel still occupied, he only had one option for passage to Rivet City: the National Mall. He had hoped it wouldn't come to that and for the briefest of moments he considered whether or not the risk of being captured by the Brotherhood was worth circumventing the Mall. ' _Perhaps,'_ he reasoned with himself. _'the Mall has improved. Perhaps the mutant trenches have been cleared. Perhaps the Lyons' development was seen through._ _And just maybe_ _the area has been converted into_ _the_ _trading point_ _as_ _was_ _once designed_ _.'_ He realized that he wasn't doing himself any favors by speculating on the improbable. Danse knew what the Mall had been like when he'd left for the Commonwealth. It was never going to change because changing it was never going to benefit the Brotherhood. It was charity.

Danse could see the dark silhouette, that towering obelisk that was the Washington Monument peeking over the top of the museums. He began to ascend one of the mountainous piles of rubble between the buildings, lithely leaping between chunks of concrete. He felt less secure without the safety of his power armor, more exposed, but there was something to be said for being able to freely move all extremities to their full range of motion. But then he reached the summit and his heart sank.

During the years that Danse spent at the Citadel, the trenches had been dug into the lawn of the Mall by Steel soldiers. Low on troops and supplies, the trenches had been overtaken by an infestation of super mutants. The remaining knights stationed at the Monument had met some success in holding off an all out assault by the mutants, but it appeared that the camp had either been completely abandoned or overtaken. Swarming the entirety of the lawn were the enormous, hideous abominations illuminated only by bonfires that reeked of rotted, burning flesh. There were easily fifty or so mutants swarming the area like flies and those were just the ones he could see in the orange light. And of course, for every ten or so mutants, there was an obligatory pet centaur. He'd nearly forgotten about the repulsive beasts, so mutilated and deformed that it was hard for him to believe they'd once been human.

He'd just need to make it to the entrance of the underground metro, then the worst thing he'd have to deal with were raiders and ferals, both of which were faster than mutants, but also went down a hell of a lot quicker. He would have to move swiftly, silently. Perhaps his lack of power armor was a blessing in disguise. He lowered to a crouch, adjusted his rucksack on his shoulder, reloaded the fusion cell on his laser rifle and slowly began his descent.

He moved quickly, skirting around the edge of the lawn, passing beneath the awning of the museum. Three mutants had gathered around the glow of one of the bonfires about twenty or so yards away, but he was fairly certain that he was going to make it to the metro gate undetected.

“You hear something?”

Danse's blood ran cold. The voice was the unmistakable grunt of a super mutant. Danse halted his movements immediately and saw as two supers rounded the dark corner directly ahead of him.

“Mmm, I think… there something over here.” One of the mutants turned, looking directly at the area where Danse sat hidden in shadow. He could make a run for it, he thought. They would surely see him, but hopefully not pursue him down the stairs to the underground. He could open fire, try to catch them by surprise, but unless his aim was flawless in the dark, it was almost certain death without armor.

Danse never was one to run away from a fight.

He aimed his rifle at the nearest mutant's head and pulled the trigger. A bright beam of light erupted from the end and hit the mutant directly in the eye. It cried out in agony as Danse unleashed several subsequent pulls on the trigger and watched as the creature turned into a pile of glowing ash. The second mutant pulled its hunting rifle off of its back and charged straight towards him.

“You pay for that, human!” It screamed, but Danse was already unleashing hellfire onto the mutant, causing it to stagger backwards and fall to the ground. He'd managed to clear the path to the metro, but not without attracting the attention of the mutants near the fire.

He heard it before he saw it--a noise like a whip being lashed across the air. Then from behind the mutants emerged the abhorrent beast crawling towards him on six hands, engorged tongue whipping furiously to the left and right. He barely had time to react before the bullets began whizzing past him. The centaur wretched, spitting out putrid radioactive matter which Danse managed to skirt around… and right into one of the mutant's bullets.

The pain was excruciating, red hot and ripping right through his abdomen. He staggered backwards, his bag sagging off his shoulder and dropping to the ground, firing off shots from his laser rifle into the centaur's face.

Then there was a whoosh of something large cutting through the night, followed by a brilliant flash.

All he heard was ringing. All he saw was white.

Somewhere in the distance, miles away, he could hear a chorus of shouting and several booms that reverberated throughout his entire body. _'This must be what dying feels like. I must be dying,'_ he thought rather calmly. He could feel his body being lifted from the ground. _'I wonder what happens to synths when they die?'_ He was floating, the booms becoming further and fewer and then all went dark as consciousness abandoned him completely.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Danse tries so very hard to not be a racist.
> 
> xx

“Give me your glass.” Arthur held out his hand in expectation, which was met with a single arched eyebrow from Danse.

“I've only just finished.”

“We're celebrating,” was Arthur's justification. “Loosen your collar, paladin. A second drink won't kill you.” He set Danse's glass on the large wooden desk, splashed a small amount of whiskey into the bottom and repeated the motion in his own. Arthur handed the glass back and raised his in a toast. “To securing Fort Strong...”

“To the Commonwealth having less mutant filth now than when it awoke this morning,” Danse added. Arthur smirked in approval and gave a single nod, then the two men raised their glasses and drank in unison. Maxson pulled open one of the drawers on the front of his desk and procured a small wooden case with faded gold lettering stenciled on the top.

“Cigar?”

“Absolutely.”

Arthur retrieved a cigar for each of them, handing one to Danse. Danse leaned forward as Arthur held out a lighter to ignite the end and leaned back on the couch behind a cloud of swirling blue smoke. Arthur reclined in his chair, propping his feet up on the desk in front of him and exhaled rings of smoke that expanded as they floated up towards the ceiling. Tobacco was prohibited everywhere aboard the Prydwen with the exception of Maxson's private quarters and even then was it only permitted under specified circumstances. The two men basked in the rare moment of reprieve.

“How is our newest knight's training coming along?” Arthur inquired, blue eyes still staring up at the ceiling, puffing a chain of smoke through the cigar.

“Knight Wallace's progression is exceptional, in spite of the lack of formal Brotherhood training.” Danse took a sip from his glass, the liquid warm and comforting in his chest. “I think her display this evening speaks for itself. She's a born soldier.”

“Indeed. I believe she'll make the Brotherhood proud. She already has.” Maxson stroked the grain of his beard thoughtfully, his mind a million miles from the Prydwen. Danse recognized this distant expression, understood that the calm demeanor was by no means an indication of what simmered beneath the surface. Maxson tapped the ash from his cigar into the ceramic ashtray on his desk and left it resting on the edge, abandoning it to run the tip of his index finger along the rim of his glass. Maxson, being young and full of vernal energy, always had to be moving, always needed something to occupy him so that his hands did not idle for too long. It was a habit that was sure to fade with age and maturity as it had with Danse himself.

“Is there any particular reason you ask?” Danse hitched his ankle over his knee, taking a drag off of the cigar. Though he did not deem his relationship with Nora as anything less than professional--nothing outside of his own private thoughts, at least--he felt a tinge of anxiety whenever Maxson wanted to discuss her. Sexual and romantic relationships certainly weren't forbidden within the Brotherhood; if anything they were encouraged in an effort to ensure future generations of Steel soldiers. However, a superior in command fraternizing with his subordinate never failed to raise a few eyebrows. He tried to brush the worry aside. Maxson was indeed perceptive beyond his years, but he was no mind reader. And if there was one thing Danse excelled at, it was maintaining a smooth exterior. The knights despised playing cards with him for that exact reason.

“Aside from wanting to know that my knight is adhering to Brotherhood standards?”

“Of course, it was thoughtless of me to ask.”

There was a beat of silence as the two men drank and smoked. Danse was beginning to feel grateful that the subject seemed to have passed, when suddenly Maxson broke the silence. “There was something, actually.”

“Oh?” _Damn it._

“What do you think of her?” Maxson scrutinized Danse's expression. Just as Danse was aware of his own reputation for having a poker face, Maxson was aware of this too.

“Wallace? She's a fine soldier.”

“Yes, but… what do you think of _her_?”

“I don't believe I follow, Arthur.” Of course, he knew what Maxson meant. Nora was a beautiful enigma. She was charismatic and artful. She was sharp-tongued and hot-tempered, yet kind and empathetic. She could be as wild as a fiend, but her behavior was often tinged with an antiquated propriety. And that absurdly tight vault suit she'd worn for so long clung to her curves in such a way that, more often than he'd care to admit, it was the last image that played in Danse's mind before he went to sleep at night.

So yes, he knew exactly what Maxson meant.

“She's sharp,” Maxson continued, fingering the edge of his glass. His cigar still sat neglected on the edge of the ashtray. “And tough. And... well, she's not bad to look at either.”

Danse shifted infinitesimally in his seat. “I… suppose I hadn't noticed.”

Arthur chuckled, retrieving his cigar once again, continuous puffs of smoke emitting from his mouth as it hung from between his lips. He placed his large hands behind his head, something of a twinkle in his knowing expression. Arthur Maxson did not delay in calling bullshit when he could smell it. “You can't honestly expect me to believe that you've spent all of those nights out in the field with Initiate Wallace and not noticed her. Decorum has its place, Danse--you and I know this better than most--but you're not blind.”

“I suppose Wallace is rather… beguiling.”

Maxson chuckled again. Even in the most casual of settings Paladin Danse was all pomp and circumstance. “Of course. Perhaps it was indecent of me to ask. It's just that...” He trailed off, his boyish smirk fading somewhat. He looked down at his glass and swirled the brown liquid within. “Well, I'm the last of my line, the last Maxson. And there's a tremendous pressure for me to continue it.”

Danse's stomach suddenly lurched up into his chest. “And you want to continue it with… Knight Wallace?”

“It sounds a bit lecherous to put it that way, but yes." Arthur paused before adding, "if she'll have me, of course.”

“Are you asking me if I approve, Arthur?”

“No, not exactly. I'm more interested in your advisement. Now that she has achieved an officer's status, I feel that it is an appropriate time to pursue her. You know her better than anyone else here.” Maxson's expression was suddenly studying, searching Danse's face once again. Danse tried to subdue his discomfort. Was the elder really asking him for advice on women? Danse pondered this for a brief moment and just he had decided to seek an exit strategy from the conversation, the elder continued. “Unless there's something between the two of you.”

“Of course not.” Danse replied a little too eagerly. ' _That was sloppy.'_ He attempted to redeem himself. "If you wish for me to speak with her on the matter I would be glad to do so." Wait, what? Now he was going to pass along messages between the two like school children? He resisted the urge to ball his fist in his mouth before he offered to deliver their first born child. He opted for his drink instead.

“While I appreciate the offer, Danse, I prefer you not.” The elder chuckled uncomfortably before straightening in his chair, his pale blue eyes suddenly filled with purpose. The air had shifted. "There is another matter, however..." Casually, Maxson pulled open another desk drawer, retrieving a gleaming revolver modified with an elongated silencer; Nora's .357 Magnum.

A red polished finger ran along the shining barrel of the gun. Had she been there the entire time? The personification of a pre-war jezebel, she was wearing nothing but Maxson's battlecoat, the belt tied at the waist, the soft planes of her stomach and the cuneate valley between her breasts visible at the opening. It wasn't Nora, the face was wrong--twisted and cruel, dark shadows beneath her menacing eyes. And yet, he knew that it was her. A white hand snaked over Maxson's shoulder and glided with fingers spread down his chest. Her inky hair covered her face as she leaned over Maxson to nip at the lobe of his ear.

“ _Do it,”_ she whispered beneath her breath as she plunged the fingers of her other hand into the hair on the crown of Arthur's head. Seemingly unruffled by Nora's ministrations, Arthur pointed the gun directly at Danse in the most nonchalant manner and pulled back the hammer.

“On your knees, paladin.”

\-----

He drifted on a sea of infinite empty space with no escape evident, just a vast gaping void. He had no spatial or proprioceptive awareness, his limbs seemingly vanished along with the rest of his corporeal form. Where was he? He wasn't even sure if he was _anywhere_. Maybe this is what death was for a synth. Perhaps the afterlife is just endless sensory deprivation, no body to feel weight, no sound, no light. Just an eternity of nothing until the synapses cease firing. But then he felt it… through the darkness came a pounding sensation in his head accompanied by a throbbing throughout his left side. No, he was most certainly alive. If there was one thing he knew for certain, it was that pain only meant that one was still breathing. He was dimly aware of a door opening and closing again. Hushed, raspy voices were barely audible over the pulsating in his head.

“Well, would you look at that face? If that isn't the best lookin' thing that's been dragged through these doors, then I'm Dean Domino.”

“Ah, I don't know. He's not bad.”

“You're a dirty liar, Graves.”

“He's alright, objectively speaking. Skin's too smooth.”

“Now you're just trying to butter me up.”

“Is it working?”

A door opened once again and a third, deeper voice joined them, just as hoarse as the other two. “How's the patient, Nurse?”

“It's 'Doctor' now. You know that, Quinn.”

“Fine, how's the patient, Doctor Nurse?”

“He'll make it. Took a pretty big blow to the back of the head and he had some internal bleeding on his left side, but I managed to get the bullet out. I think he'll make it out of here no worse for wear.”

One of the voices huffed. “I still don't understand why we brought him in.”

The first voice laughed. “You know, Willow, I think I said the same thing about you when you first got here.” The door opened once again. “Now go on, if you wake my patient up the two of you will be occupying my other beds.”

A moment later there was a sharp sensation in his arm, then relief chased by blissful silence. Danse drifted off.

A length of time passed. It felt like minutes, but it could have been weeks for all he knew. The pounding in his head had decreased to a murmur and the pain in his extremities had all but subsided. Danse dared to open his eyes.

He found himself lying on a bed in a sick bay of sorts. Flasks bubbled over burners, medical implements were laid out on a table against the wall and a screen obscured his view of the far end of the room. Suspicious dark red stains coated the floor next to the bed. He slowly eased himself up on his right arm and a nasty pain stabbed through the left side of his stomach. He heard movement coming from the opposite end of the room and a small figure could be seen hovering over a counter on the other side of the screen. The figure started at the sound of the bed creaking beneath his movements and turned to walk over to greet him. From behind the screen came a small female ghoul with patches of red hair sprouting from her decaying scalp, dressed in a dirty medic's uniform. Danse paused at the sight of her, but was too worn to wretch outwardly. What kind of hell had been dragged to?

“Back from the dead it would seem,” the ghoul croaked in her rough voice. "Good morning, handsome."

“Where the hell am I?” Danse's voice was almost as raw as the ghoul's and he became acutely aware of how thirsty he was. He gingerly touched his hand to the back of his head. Most of his shaggy locks had been cut short near the base of his skull and that which had not been cut had become caked with dirt and dried blood. His fingertips lightly ghosted over the source of pain in his scalp, a fresh wound smooth with new scar tissue that cut low beneath his occipital bone.

The ghoul wheezed out a humorless laugh. “Now, is that anyway to talk to the ghoul who just spent the last three days stuffing your guts back into your body?” Danse clutched at the throbbing area on his abdomen, shuddering at the violating thought of the ghoul's rotted hands rooting around in his organs. A door swung open near the foot of his bed and a second red-tressed--and far more road worn--female ghoul appeared, granted Danse a cursory glance and turned to the medic.

“When did he wake up?” the second ghoul asked.

“Just now.” The medic placed a hand on her hip. “I was about to go find Quinn.”

“Have you asked him? Has he said anything?”

“I've already told you two, it's none of my business. I'm not getting involved in this charade.”

Danse was not a man who was accustomed to being spoken about as if he wasn't in the room. “Hey!” He barked out at the ghouls, barely wincing at the sparks of pain that the sound caused in his head. They jumped and turned to him simultaneously with a look of surprise. “Where in the hell _am I_?”

"Well, aren't you a pleasant tourist?" The road-worn ghoul spoke. The two ghouls exchanged a small glance. “Graves, maybe you wanna go get Quinn now?”

The medic, the one called Graves, huffed her way through the door. Now that they were alone, the rougher ghoul turned to Danse and grabbed a chair near the bed, the legs scraping on the grimy linoleum floor as she walked. She sat the chair down directly in front of him and took a seat, hands folded in her lap.

“You're in Underworld, smoothskin,” she casually rumbled. “A ghoul's only real refuge in the Capital Wasteland.” She held out a rotted hand. “The name's Willow.”

Danse didn't acknowledge the gesture. Through his travels he'd learned to tolerate most ghouls, but old prejudices die hard. “And I can presume you're the one who found me?”

Willow dropped her hand back to her lap and chuckled. “If by 'found' you mean saved you from getting blown to bits, then yeah, I did. Well, I had a little help. What were you doing traveling on your own in the Mall anyway?”

“I was making my way to Rivet City.” Danse eyed the ghoul warily and sentiment was returned.

“Oh yeah? And what's waiting for you there?”

“It's…” He halted in uncharacteristic hesitation. Why was this stranger so interested in his business? “I'm not sure how that's any of your concern.”

“Oh, but it is." Willow leaned back and stroked her scabby chin thoughtfully and Danse couldn't help but feel like there was some sort of secret he wasn't in on. “You don't look much like a waster. Too healthy. Don't fight like one either. You took down four greenies and a centaur before spilling your insides all over your own boots. Your stealth technique could use some work though.” Danse didn't appreciate the critique. And where were his things? Willow gave him the once over before leaning forward then, her face close enough to his so that he could smell her reeking breath. He wrinkled his nose to show his distaste. “Where did you get that Brotherhood of Steel uniform?”

Danse narrowed his eyes. “It's mine,” he said through clenched teeth. “And unless you're either very brave or incredibly foolish, you'll return it to me.” Of course, these _things_ had gone through his gear, probably pilfered anything of value already. Willow sat back once again with a low chuckle.

“That's some awfully big talk for someone in your boots.” He knew she wasn't incorrect. Though no one would be here to stop him from resorting to violence--and he could probably take her on his own, even in his condition--he had no idea what waited for him beyond those doors. “Most folks 'round here don't trust your type and you can consider me one of them. Now, where did you get that Brotherhood of Steel uniform?”

“I've already answered your question. It's _mine_.” It was strange, this ghoul's interest in the uniform. There was a great deal of animosity between ghouls and the Brotherhood. In fact, it was a wonder they didn't put him down as soon as they saw the uniform.

“Well now, that's interesting. I have to wonder," There was a glint in the ghoul's eye that made him uncomfortable. "What exactly is an android doing with a Brotherhood uniform?” Danse's heart stopped and the ghoul smirked.

“How did you…?”

Just then the door opened and in walked Doctor Graves and a male ghoul, a large sniper rifle strapped to his back. “Willow!” he barked. “Willow you should've waited for me.” Danse recognized the voice as one he'd heard through his unconsciousness, presumably Quinn.

“He says the uniform belongs to him.”

The male ghoul turned towards him. “Is that true?”

“Yes,” Danse responded. “As I've tried explaining to your associate here.”

“He already knows we found out about his little secret,” Willow added.

“And how did he find that out I wonder?” Quinn shook his head. He gestured towards Willow with an uttered “move” and sat in the chair after she'd vacated it and left the room with a huff. “Graves, you got any water for our guest?” The medic gave a nod and retreated to the other end of the infirmary, returning a moment later with a bottle of Aqua Pura. Danse accepted the bottle with little reluctance and once the water hit the back of his throat he downed it with urgency. “I apologize for Willow. She isn't exactly trusting of unknown quantities.” Quinn's voice was not unkind and Danse found that he had relaxed in his presence despite himself. “So, you're a Brotherhood officer?”

“Was. I _was_ a Brotherhood officer.”

“Hmm, yeah. We've heard of your kind infiltrating the Brotherhood. Funny though... from what I've heard most synthetics don't make it out of the Citadel alive once they've been discovered. DC's a dangerous place for you to be, my friend.”

“I wasn't aware… I didn't know there were others.”

“Oh yeah, we've heard all kinds of stories. I guess it's got the entire Citadel over there in an uproar." Quinn cocked his head in a questioning manner. "You really haven't heard this?”

“I… it's been a couple years since my banishment. I was in the Commonwealth at the time.” Danse took another sip from the bottle of water. “I wasn't cognizant of my true identity.”

“So why come to DC? What's here for you other than a firing squad?”

Danse hesitated. "It's really a rather long story."

"Well," the ghoul stated plainly, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket and putting one to his mouth before offering the pack to Danse. "It's a good thing we have time."

Danse was never much for long winded narratives. Ever the careful observer, he much preferred to listen and for the last two years that trait had kept him safe. No one he'd encountered knew of his synth identity--perhaps at first he was trying to forget it himself, a fruitless endeavor. And yet he felt the words pour out of his mouth in that moment, a door long since locked and neglected had been opened by this ghoul's congenial manner. Danse couldn't even stop himself. Maybe it was the fact that the worst of him had already been made known to the ghoul or perhaps it was the unspoken kinship that existed between all non-humans that allowed him to release then.

He told Quinn most everything, save some specific detail. He spoke of Rivet City and enlisting in the Brotherhood. He spoke of watching as a young Arthur Maxson grew from a soft, shy child into the battle-hardened leader of the Brotherhood. He told him about Recon Squad Gladius, the failed expeditions throughout the Commonwealth that had taken most of his team and the looming certainty of death when they lost communication with the Citadel. His breathing hitched when he spoke of the tenacious vault dweller that swooped in like some armored crusader from an old comic book and assisted him clearing the police station of ferals as if she'd been expected. Danse's eyes could not meet the ghoul's as he told Quinn about the passionate, desperate kiss he'd shared with that same vault dweller at the bomb disposal site; how he'd returned to the Prydwen and sprawled across his bed, rehearsing his confession of affection he'd offer her upon her arrival, only to be met with an anxious Scribe Haylen pounding on his quarter's door. Quinn listened with seemingly rapt attention as Danse described the revelation of his true identity and Nora holding the gun to his head by Maxson's orders, only to collapse before him, unable to pull the trigger.

"That Elder Maxson guy sounds like a real piece of work," Quinn commented.

Danse offered a grimace to accompany the dismissive shake of his head. "You must understand, he did what he believed needed to be done based on the principles of his upbringing. I could never begrudge him that." His eyes clouded over with memory, seeing things that might've been. "I believe I would've made the same decision had the situation been in reverse."

And then he described the way he'd confronted Maxson and how Nora had defended him; how he fled the Commonwealth and of promises broken. He told the ghoul of his travels up to the north and the settlement he'd helped to fortify in Appalachia and finally, of his decision to learn the true meaning of his existence. He'd intentionally left out any mention of the headaches and night terrors, fearing the same treatment from the medic ghoul as he'd received from the healer and Haylen and Knight-Captain Cade.

Aside from his commentary on the elder, Quinn sat in silence as Danse spoke, adding in an occasional “hmm” and “mm hmm” when appropriate and once Danse had stopped speaking, the two of them sat in silence for a time, the doctor having left the infirmary some hours before. Just as Danse was beginning to feel insecure at revealing so much to a complete stranger, Quinn spoke.

“Well,” he began. “I don't know that I can give you the answers you're looking for, stranger. There's a good chance no one can. But,” he added, an eerie smile flirting with the corner of his mouth. “If you're interested and if you're willing to do me favor... to do  _us_ a favor, I think I might know a guy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that some new tags have been added and the rating has changed. Please see the notes at the beginning of Chapter 1 for more info. Love you.
> 
> xx


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nora has no clue what the fuck she's doing anymore.
> 
> xx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a little surprise for you all at the end. Enjoy.
> 
> xx

Arthur Maxson was a man of incredible self-discipline. Each morning he rose before the sun and ran the perimeter of the airport four times. He then retreated to his private quarters aboard the Prydwen where he performed the same repetition of circuits each morning. He would then shower and take his breakfast (a barely passable imitation of coffee and a soupy gruel filled with essential protein and vitamins) as he reviewed the intel gathered from the night before. By 8 a.m. he was meeting with Lancer-Captain Kells to discuss tactical planning and dispensation of the day's field assignments. At 10 a.m. he met with Proctor Ingram to review ongoing projects, by 11 a.m. he met with Proctor Quinlan who gave him a run down on the most recent scribe acquisitions (a meeting that he generally struggled to remain awake through) and by noon he stowed away to the quiet end of the flight deck for his first drink of the day. The rest of his afternoon and evening would be filled by status meetings with various high ranking officers, approving tactical operations and generally putting out the various fires that arose throughout the day. There were seldom moments that he had truly unto himself and too often those moments were occupied with a tab of buffout and a shot of whiskey just to offer him some form of comfort. There were no paid breaks, no vacations. Weekends were an archaic concept that were buried deep within the rubble of the wastes. He was always on, always the Elder.

So it was a relief when anyone came to him for something other than a want or a need or a petty squabble or a new calamity.

“Hands up, initiate. Keep that face covered. And for God's sake, drop your shoulders,” Maxson called from outside of the platform. He looked on as Cait sparred with one of the newer knights, foreheads glistening, the air thick with the stench of sweat tinged by the metallic bite of blood. Maxson always enjoyed training, though he had little time for it these days. He reveled in the feeling of developing a new recruit into a powerful, highly trained warrior under his tutelage. Every pupil that fell under his guidance provided him with a new perspective and he found that he often learned just as much from teaching as his student did.

Cait, however, presented him with some rather… unique lessons.

“Yeah, yeah, I heard ye,” Cait called back to him, bouncing back and forth between the balls of her feet like he'd taught her. “This little one ain't even gonna touch me anyways. Isn't that right, sweetheart?” Cait blew a patronizing kiss at her opponent, daring him to strike. The knight, egged on by Cait's provocation, hooked an arm towards her right. Cait danced away from the blow and threw out her own right hook which he deflected with his fists.

“Come on, initiate. This isn't a ballroom dance.” Maxson paced the outside of the ring. “That's an enemy combatant and he would like nothing more than to destroy you and everything you care about. Now hurry up and strike him.”

“Good thing there isn't much in this world that I care about then.” Cait hooked left then right, both blows connecting with the knight's ribs.

“Then I suggest you find something worth fighting for.” Arthur was no stranger to the prickly exterior that often accompanied the fresh wastelander recruits. When you were raised within the Brotherhood brood, one's loyalty was unquestioning from conception. The Citadel was the universe and the Elder was God. Outsiders though, their loyalty needed to be cultivated and forged from the chip on their shoulder. Cait was no exception to this rule, but few clung to their worldly habits the way that she so desperately clung to hers. But she was quick and she was strong--he had to give her that at least.

“Good!” Maxson barked out. “Now, don't lose your advantage.” Cait threw out another hook, but this time it was anticipated. The knight rebuffed her blow and Cait stumbled back as she lost her footing. “Perhaps,” Arthur continued. “You must use your _anger_ to fuel your instinct until you find a more just cause. Maybe your enemy is the raider who robbed you...” Cait regained her balance and threw out another blocked fist. “Or maybe he's the slaver who captured you.” The knight was quick, stepping forward and jabbing his fists into the exposed skin of her midriff. Cait attempted to connect with the side of his head, but was impeded once again. She ground her teeth together and let out a frustrated growl.

“Or maybe I'm the drunk daddy who never loved you,” the knight whispered low beneath his breath. And that was it. Cait snapped, diving into the knight and headbutting him in the gut with a grunt of force. The knight fell back and she collapsed above him, her knees on either side of his hips as she drove her fists, one after the other into any place where they could connect with his flesh.

“Initiate!” Maxson bellowed. In an instant he had pulled himself up into the ring and dove between the ropes, running over to pull Cait off of the stunned knight. He wrapped a thick arm around her waist and lifted her off, her fists continuing to beat into the air. “Initiate, that's enough!” Arthur kept his hold on her as her fists slowed and two other knights rushed into the ring to tend to Cait's victim. “Fenton, are you alright?” The knight managed to give a small nod and groaned out an affirmative reply. Maxson dragged Cait from the ring on her heels, her breathing still emitting in haggard ripples and his arms wrapped tight around her waist. “Are you quite finished?” She nodded and he released her. Cait kept her eyes fixated on the knight as one of his brothers helped him to his feet, eyeing him like a beast eyes its quarry. Her face was unapologetic. “Initiate, this is a sparring exercise. Underhanded maneuvers such as that may have been acceptable in the Combat Zone, but here there are rules by which we contend.”

“Ha!” Cait forced out a laugh and lolled her head back in Arthur's direction. “It ain't fightin' if there's rules.”

“And this isn't a fight. This is a training exercise and you will train according to the rules. If you cannot accept that, then there's the door.”

“He provoked me!”

“Knight Fenton is not the only adversary who will provoke you, but he just might be the one responsible for keeping ferals off of your back someday.” Maxson glowered down at her from behind the deep set of his blue eyes. “Learning to control your anger is just as vital as learning to throw a good punch.” He echoed a piece of advice that he'd been presented with many times in the past, the irony of which was not lost on him.

“Weren't you the one just telling me to use my anger to fuel me instinct or somethin'?” Cait began peeling off the wraps from her knuckles as she spoke. She was unaccustomed to fighting with precision and purpose. Her whole life had felt like one big scramble just to keep her head above water, always moving from one fight to the next with little care or regard. She'd managed to claw her way through life in this manner for twenty-nine years, so being told to focus her anger and find a just cause by some snot-nosed twenty-three year old was difficult to concede to. She didn't care how many goddamned deathclaws he'd killed. In fact, she didn't care if he'd killed a hundred deathclaws stark naked with a feather duster.

“Rage can be an adequate substitute for purpose if a nobler one can’t be found. However, anger is volatile. It must be controlled and refined.” Maxson’s attention was pulled towards the door where the sharp cut of Lancer-Captain Kells' officer hat caught his eye. In the captain's hand was a long, curling strip of paper--no doubt an urgent communication if Kells could not wait until the morning to approach him with it. Maxson nodded towards him and turned back to his student. “That's enough for today, initiate. Go hit the head. We'll reconvene tomorrow at 19:00.” The elder excused himself, walking briskly over to where his second-in-command waited with the barest hint of tension evident across his face.

\---

Nora stood before the hulking power armor frame while Proctor Ingram reviewed the damage. The proctor knit her eyebrows together and crinkled the bridge of her nose.

“Well, at least you didn't die,” she concluded after giving the sentinel's battered armor frame the once over.

Nora laughed. “Yeah, that seems to be a recurring sentiment. I'm thinking about having it tattooed across my neck.”

“Now don't go thinking that makes you special, sentinel.” It was intended as a playful jab, but there was the barest twitch of bitterness behind the proctor's words. It could've been due to the fact that she'd seen so many others in her order plunge head first into combat without living to tell the tale. It could've also been the fact that she'd barely made it out herself when a mini nuke threw her off a cliff and crushed her legs beyond repair, committing her to a life sealed within the confines of her power armor frame. Ingram dug the spiny metal fingers of her power suit beneath the crushed casing on the shoulder. With little effort, the shoulder piece separated completely from the rest of the arm. Nora and Ingram wore matching grimaces. “Yeah, that isn't supposed to do that.”

“Is it fixable?”

“Probably...” Ingram sighed. “But it's going to take some time. You may need to borrow a loaner suit if you plan on going out into the field at all in the next month.”

“A _month_?!” Nora cried.

“Hey, unless you can clone two more of me, that's the ETA.” Ingram held up the damaged shoulder piece and let out a _tsk tsk_ at the concave armor. “What were you doing out in the crater alone anyways?”

“Oh you know, just… looking for tech.” It wasn't the first time Nora had visited the crater of the CIT ruins since the Brotherhood put it there two years prior. It was, however, the first time anyone else had been aware of her visiting the crater. Truth was she didn't really know why she went back there. The first time was the day after the bomb was detonated. She'd gone to look for survivors. None were ever found. The next time it was under the guise of scouring the area for scraps of Institute tech. Occasionally she might stumble across a sensor module or a disembodied limb actuator, but it was never enough to be worth the next trip back. Something about it made Nora feel strangely connected to her past. Within the bowels of the Institute, Nora had looked upon the face of her son for the last time--watched as the child she'd hardly known slipped away from a world that neither of them belonged in, going to his grave with nothing but contempt for her. She supposed that maybe she went back there to pay her respects to Shaun at his final resting place. Or maybe she was still looking for the baby boy she'd lost all those years ago. She never knew if she'd made the right decision.

But she had a new life now, one that she'd fully committed to. She'd found purpose within the Brotherhood and a true sense of belonging. How strange it was that she felt more at home now than she had in her own time. Before the big freeze, Nora had barely settled into her part as “loving mother and devoted wife”, a role that never quite fit the way she thought it was supposed to. It was a strange and surreal dream, full of bright colors and birthday parties and white picket fences. Fifteen months before the birth of her son, Nora had been in Greenwich Village sharing an apartment with too many roommates and too few rooms, playing hard to get with the handsome soldier fresh from Anchorage she'd met in a bar. A year and a half later she was a married mother living the idyllic suburban dream, a path she never intended to take. Nate had proposed--to the delight of her parents and to the chagrin of his--when he found out Nora was pregnant six months after they'd met. Surely he could've done better than some damn pseudo-commie living in the Village with a degree in _environmental law,_ of all things. But Nate, just like so many others that came before and would come yet after, was smitten. He was older and mature and old fashioned and he loved Nora because she was anything but.

Nora had always felt that she probably didn't deserve him.

“Looks like someone's been cheating.”

“Excuse me?” Nora snapped from her thoughts. Right, power armor. Proctor Ingram. Fucking post-apocalyptic wasteland. But wait, what?

“Someone's been using scraps. This thing is barely being held together. Consumer grade adhesive, unfortified aluminum plating? I'm surprised I haven't found any duct tape under here yet.” Ingram had pulled the cracked plates off of the backside of the frame and was digging through the bent torso. “Did you have some wastelander fix this up for you? This sure as hell didn't come out of _my_ workshop.”

Nora scratched her head and looked away bashfully. “Ah no, just a few Wallace originals.” Ingram looked up at her from behind the frame, her head shaking and her mouth a thin line.

“If you're too busy to have your armor properly maintained, then you should assign some of your tasks to another party.” Ingram resumed her poking and prodding, pulling out bits of loose metal and screws. “You really are lucky to be no worse for wear.”

Nora retired to her quarters, ready for a shower and a smoke and perhaps a nice glass of brown to take the edge off of her aching bones. Before the heavy door to her room swung closed behind her, she'd already unzipped the top half of her black uniform and let it fall to her hips. Her torso was naked save for the military issued athletic bra that covered her and a chain with her holotags that disappeared behind it between her breasts. She tried not to pick at the freshly healed tattoo of the gear, sword and wings inked onto her upper arm, the Brotherhood insignia. It was her first and only tattoo. She turned and twisted in the tall mirror that sat propped against the far wall of her room, inspecting her skin for evidence of damage. A few scrapes peppered her shoulder where the armor had collapsed and several bruises were beginning to blossom on her stomach and arms. She twisted to look at the jagged scar that cut over her hip and disappeared behind her back, a reminder of why deathclaws should never be taken on at short range. She ran her fingers over the shiny patch of skin, remembering the large, steady hands that had cleaned and dressed the wound when it was still fresh. There was suddenly a heavy knock at the door.

“It's open,” she called out, keeping her eyes fixated on her reflection. In the mirror she saw the door fly open and Arthur Maxson erupt through the threshold behind her, setting a dark bottle of something on her desk and rushing over to where she stood. “Elder,” she murmured. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” With no response, he ran a calloused palm over her shoulder, inspecting the scrapes there before spinning her around and lifting her chin with his fingers to meet his eyes.

“Nothing broken?”

“I'm fine.”

“Have you been up to medical?”

“Arthur, I'm _fine_.”

The elder dropped his hand as if he'd suddenly realized their close proximity. Nora was not unaccustomed to these minute acts of affection from him, but it was clear that he was not entirely comfortable with it himself. The poor kid. He'd probably never had a moment of unadulterated intimacy in his life.

“I have something interesting for you.” He broke his gaze away from her and retrieved the bottle he'd deposited on her desk. It was a short black bottle, the label long since worn away, but lettering imprinted on the top indicated the contents. “You once told me of a kind of liquor that was made from juniper. Is this what you were referring to?” He handed her the bottle and she pulled off the top with a _fwump_ , taking an experimental whiff of the contents. The unmistakable, piney scent of gin met her nostrils, almost too strong to stomach.

“Whew, oh yeah, that's gin alright,” she said, capping the bottle once more. Arthur moved to the credenza pressed up against the wall and grabbed two glasses.

“Shall we?” He held up the glasses. She didn't have the heart to remind him that when they'd discussed gin previously, she'd expressed her disdain for it--how the taste was ruined for her at fifteen when her best friend had stolen a bottle out of her parents' liquor cabinet. The two of them drank so much until she'd thrown up everything she'd ever consumed on the Johnsons' trampoline. No, he'd likely gone through some trouble to procure it and for as much as she hated gin, she appreciated the gesture more.

“Gin really should be mixed with something.” Nora went over to her bag and rummaged through the contents until she produced a bottle of Nuka Cola Quantum with an “aha!” She popped open the Quantum and poured some in each glass. “It's no tonic water, but it'll do. Oh!” she exclaimed and dove under her desk to retrieve a blue cooler, removing a mutfruit from inside. Anything to mask the horrible bite of gin. Arthur watched with rapt attention as she smashed bits of mutfruit in the bottom of the glasses and topped the contents off with some splashes of the alcohol, swirling around the concoction with the blunt end of a pen.

“I don't typically put food in my liquor,” he said as Nora handed him one of the glasses.

“It's called a cocktail, Arthur. You can't tell me no one drinks cocktails anymore.”

“It seems unnecessary.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you drink too much?”

“No.”

Nora sipped the concoction, taken by surprise at how refreshing it was. It was as good as anything else she'd tasted since waking up from cryo, the unpleasant tones of 200 year old gin aside.

“You've made quite a mess of your power armor,” Arthur remarked, sipping his drink. “It's a wonder you didn't damage anything vital.”

“Nothing but my ego.”

“I'm glad you're alright.”

There was a beat of silence that hung between the two of them. Arthur perched himself on the edge of the desk and Nora lit a cigarette. Nora eyed him through suspicious slits, beginning to question if this was really just a social call.

“We need to discuss Cait.” There it was.

“Oh god, what did she do?”

“Her anger got the best of her and she let one of the knights have it during a training exercise.” Arthur saw the horrified look on Nora's face and quickly followed up. “It was an unarmed exercise.”

"I hate to even ask, what kind of condition was the knight in after...?”

“Nothing a stimpack couldn't heal.”

Nora let out a sigh of relief. “Well, I supposed it could've been worse.”

“It could always be worse,” Arthur replied. “But these kinds of emotional outbursts are not acceptable from someone who wishes to represent the Brotherhood.”

“Well, all the more reason to have her continue to train with you then.”

“That maybe out of the question here shortly.”

“What?”

Arthur looked down at the little pieces of fruit floating in his drink, suddenly wondering what the hell he was doing there in her quarters. “We received a line of communication from the Citadel this evening.”

“You mean in DC?” Nora took a pull from her cigarette and exhaled through her nostrils. She'd heard about the Citadel from some of the other officers. From the way they described it with such homesick awe, it sounded like a palace. Judging by the state of the wasteland, she was sure their claims were greatly exaggerated.

“Yes, in DC.” Maxson found a small piece of loose thread on the stitching of his coat and absently tugged at it as he spoke. “It would seem that a slight… hierarchical dispute has erupted amongst our brothers and sisters back home, so my presence is required.”

“So is this a 'mutiny on the Bounty' type situation?”

“'Mutiny' is a bit strong. More like 'low-level systemic insubordination'. Either way it's nothing I can't handle.” She didn't know how he did it, the way he seemed to never let things get to him. Oh, the small things he certainly allowed under his skin to a fault, but perhaps that was the trade off. Arthur Maxson seemed to thrive off of inhuman levels of chaos. Nora sighed, stamping out her cigarette in the ceramic mug on her desk, adding to the collection of butts and ash.

“And I suppose that means you'll be leaving soon.” She anticipated this, really. Despite their rocky beginnings, Arthur had become the closest thing she had to a friend. It would only make too much sense that yet another person she cared for would leave her. She started to wonder if there was some kind of red flashing warning sign hovering above her head. 'Danger! Turn back! Dead end! Don't feed the yao guai!'

“Yes, it does,” he said. Arthur sipped his drink and stared at the floor as he very carefully chose the next words that formed in his mouth. “You could come with me if you wanted, you know.” Nora looked up from the swirling mess of ash and smoke rising up from the mug and was met with blue eyes staring at her with a look of… what was that, anticipation? Hope?

“And what exactly would I do at the Citadel?” She was surprised by the low octave her voice had suddenly taken on. She honestly hadn't intended to reflect such a sultry tone. Or maybe she had?

Arthur's heart was hammering in his chest. Was it nerves or just infatuation that made him feel so enormously foolish in that moment? But the low timbre of Nora's voice gave him all the encouragement he needed. In one quick movement he set his glass down, sat up and reached a hand out to graze the edge of Nora's jawline with the back of his fingers. She didn't immediately wretch away from his touch, a heartening sign. And before he had time to rethink his decision, the Elder leaned in and gently pressed his lips to hers.

If Nora was being honest with herself, she had expected this. It was inevitable, but Arthur's lips still managed to take her by surprise. She was still for a moment, her eyes wide in shock and not so much kissing him as she was being kissed _by_ him. But seemingly of its own accord, her hand slowly moved to the side of Arthur's face and rested on his bearded cheek. And without her permission, her eyes fluttered shut and lips parted slightly as she softened into his embrace. She felt a heated, confident hand move to her bare hip and slip its way around to her back, gliding over the smooth scar that marred the area and pressing her body closer to his.

It was kind of nice, really.

Arthur was the first to pull back, but kept Nora beneath his hands.

“If you were to come with me, you could do whatever you please.”

“Don't I already?” She flashed him a wicked grin. Arthur gave a low chuckle.

“You tell me.”

After her long awaited shower, Nora collapsed onto the worn mattress, wrapped in a dingy blue towel as the metal bed frame groaned beneath her movements. Arthur's words still hung heavy in the air long after he'd left the room. Leaving the Commonwealth seemed so… final, so absolute. Abandoning Boston meant closing the book on her former life. If she left, whoever Nora Wallace was might as well be dead and buried in the freezer in Vault 111. She rolled over onto her stomach and reached for the drawer of her bedside table, pulling out a long chain strung with a set of holotags and a pair of wedding rings. She removed the smaller gold band from the chain and placed it on her left ring finger, admiring the look of it, remembering the moment Nate had slipped it on her hand during their courthouse nuptials. What would he think of Sentinel Wallace? She liked to imagine that he'd approve of her chosen path, although she couldn't say that with any measure of certainty. She'd only known him for six months when she became pregnant with their son, though being a soldier himself he likely would've chosen a similar path had he been the one who survived. Maybe he would've been more suited to it, made better decisions.

She tried not to think about that too much.

Nora held up the holotags and rubbed away the smudges from the blue, holographic image. It glowered back at her with a heavy brow and stern expression. Oh, Danse. She'd been devastated when she returned to Listening Post Bravo to find it abandoned once more, though her devastation quickly gave way to unbridled anger. He had _promised_ that he'd wait for her and being mad at him was simpler than addressing the gaping hole he'd left in her heart when he ran. But in the privacy of her deepest thoughts, when her tiredness had worn down her resolve, she gazed at the little blue holograph and felt melancholy. She traced his lips, followed his jawline on the tiny picture. It was the same expression Danse wore the night they'd met outside of the Cambridge Police Station and was the image that bled into her memories of him as they faded, the fervent gaze with which he looked at her replaced with the glowing image frozen in time. She hadn't noticed back then the reverent expression in his eyes whenever they met hers, either too consumed by her own devastation or too convinced that she was simply seeing her own desire in their reflection. But in hindsight, Danse's affection for her was so painfully plain.

Nora tossed the tags back into the drawer. It was no use pining over someone who was never coming back. And anyway, Arthur cared for her and when she was honest with herself, she truly cared for him, too. Yes, he could be a bit pompous and maybe a tad overzealous at times, but he was still young. With time he'd become more mature and she might finally stop longing over a man who was gone forever. No, _machine._ Danse was a machine. It helped to think of him that way.

She closed her eyes and the fresh image of Maxson's proposal flashed before her, blue eyes soft and tender touch. She _was_ attracted to him, of that there was no denying. The feeling of his lips still lingered on her own and she swore she could still feel the warmth of his hands gripped firmly on her neck and the small of her back. Nora bit her bottom lip softly at the memory as the towel fell to the side and her palm slowly slithered down the planes of her stomach. In her mind, it was Arthur's hand that slipped its way down past her navel to the dark patch of hair at the apex of her legs. She could picture it, so easy to imagine. Arthur's mouth at her neck, his broad chest bare and pressed against her breasts, the feeling of his arousal evident as it strained against her thigh. His beard would tickle, sending sparks of electricity down her back and into her stomach. Her finger parted her lower lips and her hand came up to grasp the tender flesh of her breast, but behind her eyelids they were Arthur's hands rubbing and manipulating the slick skin.

It was so obvious how good they would be together: the Elder and his Sentinel. And it _had_ been awhile. The feeling of large arms around her, the weight of a man pressing into her, it was all too enticing. She hadn't experienced a release of that kind since before the freeze. The thought of Arthur's muscle-hardened, naked form pressed against hers, lying on the bed while he hovered over her, his mouth trailing down, down, down until his tongue lapped that bundle of nerves at her center made her hand work faster. She couldn't help but grind into his mouth, excited by the idea of turning out this man of such great power and command, fingers running through his brown hair until… wait. The image had changed. The glow of the lanterns filled the Red Rocket station and Danse's mouth moved from her center to the inside of her thigh, two fingers plunging deep inside of her, working and curling as he softly nipped at her sensitive skin. He focused his gaze on hers, an embarrassed smile breaking his composed exterior at her uttered _'goddamn it, paladin...'_. He leaned forward, tongue swirling around the outside of her navel, moving up and laving at her nipple as he took it into his mouth. Crawling forward, hand leaving her slickness and coming up to her face, fingers in her mouth and brown eyes watching in amazement as she sucked and she tasted herself. Danse poised at her entrance, pressing forward slowly as he filled her.

“ _I want you to fuck me, Danse.”_

“ _As you wish.”_

But it was Nate's voice who replied back, his hazel eyes shining back at her heavy with desire.

Oh, no.

Oh, no no _no_.

Nora's eyes snapped open, the holotags and wedding rings haphazardly hanging from the drawer of the nightstand. That was _not_ a wound she intended to pick open. She refocused her thoughts once again. Yes, Maxson. His hands gripped tight on her hips, sliding his length in and out of her, blue eyes greedily scanning her body laid out prone before him. His thumb between them, rubbing her as she felt the heat in her core building, her hips rising to meet his rhythm. Sucking her neck, nipping at her earlobe. _“_ _Come for me, sentinel.”_ The pressure mounting between her legs until she finally burst and all she could picture was Danse above her, hands gripping the blanket as he came apart inside of her.

Nora cried out with her orgasm, slowly unwinding into soft moans as she rode the final waves. But it quickly gave way to something deeper and hot tears unwittingly spilled from her eyes as her moans morphed into sobs. No, she wasn't ready; she couldn't give Arthur what he wanted. Not yet. But she certainly couldn't stay in Boston any longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god, what have I done?


End file.
